Because Slytherins Don't Cry
by RainyDayReading
Summary: Even Pansy Parkinson loved once, and she experienced heartbreak just like anybody else. A short fic written for various challenges on HPFC.


**Because Slytherins Don't Cry**

* * *

 _Can You Make It To The End Challenge - Round 4 - "Write a fic over 750 words for the pairing Pansy Parkinson/Cedric Diggory."_

 _Once Upon A Time Characters Category Challenge-tition - Competition: Grumpy - "Write about a character with a bad attitude."_

 _The 12 Days of Christmas Drabbles Challenge - Bronze Level - "You're too good for this world."_

* * *

Pansy Parkinson stares in shock as the entire school falls silent.

She's never heard such silence before; tense, pain-filled silence oozing with pure dread.

Terror seizes her heart, and she shoves a little Ravenclaw girl roughly out of the way so she can get a better look at what's going on.

And then she sees him.

 _Cedric._

Lying unmoving on the ground, with Harry Potter leaning over him, sobbing.

Pansy blinks, rubs her eyes, and looks again.

And still, all she can see is Cedric, looking like some sort of limp rag doll on the floor.

She can only watch, rooted to the spot, as Albus Dumbledore rushes onto the scene, closely followed by another man- Cedric's father, perhaps?

Pansy can't be sure.

The mob of students break out into murmurs, urgent whispers rippling through the gathered crowd.

"Cedric is dead," she hears a tinny voice announce quietly beside her.

Pansy whirls around, fury clouding her vision with dark spots until she spots her offender.

A young Hufflepuff boy, probably first year, is whispering tensely to his friend.

Pansy reaches out and yanks him to her by the collar of his school robe, lifting him a few inches off the ground so that their noses are nearly touching.

She glares into the boy's terrified eyes.

"Shut _up,"_ she spits at him through clenched teeth. "If I hear you say _anything_ like that _ever again_ I'll use the Killing Curse on you, I swear it."

He nods, eyes wide in fear, and she throws him back, stumbling, into the crowd.

That's when Pansy knows she needs to get away.

So she runs, pushing people out of her path, not caring when they shoot her murderous looks. She's never felt like this before; so mixed up and furious and scared and painfully sad all at once, and she hates it. She hates not being in control of how she feels, she hates the fact that Potter is still alive while Cedric is dead.

An anguished scream tears out of her throat, and her eyes burn with unshed tears.

 _Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry…_

She finds herself back in the quiet corridors of Hogwarts. The anxious whispers of the portraits hanging on the walls echo in her skull, almost mockingly. Pansy takes a sharp left turn at the corner and races towards the Astronomy Tower, the only place she's ever been able to get some peace.

She practically flies up the stairs leading to the top of the tower and bolts the door shut behind her, slumping against it in despair.

 _Cedric is gone._

 _Dead._

Pansy wraps her arms around her knees, trying to control her trembling. Why should she care if the Hufflepuff is dead? She doesn't care. She never cared about him.

But she knows she's lying to herself.

Cedric was the only person who ever bothered to offer her a smile in the hallways between classes- a smile that was genuine, not mocking or cruel. He was the only one who would give her a simple "hello" during breakfast, the only person who wouldn't sneer at her for being a Slytherin.

And she had always turned up her nose at him, glancing down at him in disdain, pretending like his kindness was unwanted.

But that was all a lie.

She appreciated his quick grins and greetings more than she would ever have cared to admit; but did she ever tell him that? Did she ever once let him know that she appreciated him? That she… actually cared about him?

"No," Pansy breathes, her voice choppy and ragged. "No, I did not." She inhales sharply, her eyes fluttering shut. "You're too good for this world, Cedric. Too good for _me."_

She remembers back to all those times she and Draco and Crabbe and Goyle had poked fun at him in the Slytherin dorms, mocking his Quidditch skills and his goody-two-shoes-ness.

 _But he had been a great Quidditch player._

A hollowness fills her chest, a sense of numbing cold. She takes a deep breath, blinking away the salty wetness in her eyes.

She won't cry.

She _can't_ cry.

Because she is a Slytherin and a Parkinson on top of that, and she is supposed to be mean and cruel and above everybody else.

"Slytherins don't cry," she whispers to herself, banishing all thoughts of Cedric Diggory and his unrelenting _goodness._ Pansy stands, brushing off her dark robes and straightening the "Potter Stinks!" badge that is pinned proudly to her shoulder.

Cedric had always hated those pins.

A rush of sadness overwhelms her, weakening her knees. She leans against the door to the empty Astronomy Tower, taking another shaky breath.

"Slytherins don't cry," she reminds herself firmly. "Slytherins don't cry."


End file.
